


Disciple of the Willow's

by FallingSnowe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dialogue, Family Issues, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Oriental, Samurai, Short, outcast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingSnowe/pseuds/FallingSnowe
Summary: Augusta -- just Augusta -- has endured ridicule for her goal; why become a samurai in a world that has abandoned them? She persevered through this ridicule, and now she stands before the last test between her and this goal.In history long discarded, samurai often trained by carrying well-water up stairs to supply their dojo. For Augusta it's not quite so simple. To become a samurai and finally prove her battered convictions, she departs at early dawn to climb the endless stairs of the Willow's Peak, hoping to meet with the last person that can mentor her; hoping to meet with the last samurai in her region, before the sun sets.
Kudos: 2





	Disciple of the Willow's

_ One thousand three hundred and forty-one. _

_ One thousand three hundred and forty-two. _

_ One thousand three hundred and, ah, forty-three. _

A wooden staff clacked against stone. The young female owner used it to pull the weight her calves could not. Her heart felt as though it were moments away from exploding, and her panting had long become nothing more than a reminder of the burning in her lungs. Stairs extended before her. Stairs extended behind her. 

The girl twisted on her heel. The long path down the mountain sent her head spinning, but she lacked the strength to steady herself. She dropped to a squat and sprawled out on the stairs. The cloth tied around her bun protected her hair as it nestled in the recess of one of the steps, letting her lie straight. 

The sun brushed the horizon. She felt bitter towards the realization she had been climbing since the sun faced her at the opposite side of the sky. She raised her trembling arms in front of her, placing the bottom of one closed fist against the horizon. She could not see past dense foliage, leaving her to guess. She stacked fist over fist until they met the sun. 

_ Ten hours left,  _ she thought. Fourteen hours since she had rung the bell at the base of the mountain; fourteen hours since she had signalled her intention to meet with the forgotten man at the top. The time had melted away, yet the repeating scenery made her feel as though she had gotten nowhere. She ran her hands across the steps, relishing the lush feel of the shrubbery, which grew through cracks in the stone developed and worked at since long ago. 

She stared up, eyes glazed over. A canopy of weeping-willow and flowering-plum-tree branches stretched from the trunks growing sideways from the mountainside. It provided a nice shade at the cost of no overhead view. She took no notice. Even if she weren’t taking precious time to rest, another dozen hours of watching trees would not save her deteriorating spirit. 

She flipped the front of her poncho over her head, letting the mountain air graze her midriff. It slapped her forehead, slick from her sweating for so many hours. She grimaced, but as long as it was cool, she remained no worse than ambivalent. She arched her back gently and reached between her shoulder blades, tugging a tight knot. Her arms burned as the movement stretched her exhausted muscles. The pressure around her torso eased, and her posture relaxed. Her lungs relished the extra room to expand. She followed it up with the band of her pants, letting the air flow through. The loose fabric fluttered around her legs like a wind sock. The sweat on her thighs chilled, fighting her overheating musculature. 

It was the first time she had stopped to rest. She wished she could keep going, but she had to be honest. She had long come to terms with the fact that it would surely destroy her body. Her heart continued to work. She had to fight to not get up. She forced herself to live breath to breath. She pushed her ultimate goal out of her head, focused on her burning throat, focused on her shaking hands, focused on the lack of vitality in her every muscle.

Eventually, all at once, exhaustion hit her. 

_ Five hundred thirty-one. _

_ Five hundred thirty-two. _

_ Five hundred thirty-three.  _

A girl stood surrounded on all sides by a picket fence. Between each count, her slender figure moved through movements akin to a dance. In her right hand, she held a long black blade. It moved like an extension of herself. She stopped at key points, counting each pause. Her eyes were shut. She worked agnostic to her distant surroundings. 

“Hey, what are ya countin, miss?” 

The girl stumbled. She shifted her sword aside, allowing a safe recovery. Her action kicked up dust from the barren ground. She glared in the direction of the squeaking interruption. A young, chubby boy flinched as she met his gaze. 

She sighed.  _ Of course, the quietest part of town was still infested with brats. _ “What?” 

“What are ya countin?” the boy repeated. He spoke like a hermit, and his smile revealed a set of curved buck teeth. He bore an oversized straw hat, the hallmark of hemp farmers. 

“Nothing,” she said. 

“Don’t be like that, miss,” he said. 

She huffed. 

The boy let his arms fall as he leaned into the fence. “I’m sorry I interrupted yer training. I’m just curious.” She hung her head. Written in the ground before her was the number 300. In her head was a number much greater. She looked towards a fiery horizon, the first sign of the sun’s trek over the Willow’s Mountain.  _ If I humor him, hopefully he’ll get bored and leave. _

“I’ll give you until the sun pokes over the Willow’s,” she said. 

The boy’s eyes lit up. “I’m Lio Balkin. What’s your name, miss?”

“Augusta,” she said. 

Lio tilted his head. “Do ya have a last name, miss?”

“Nope,” she replied. 

He let out a  _ huh, _ but his surprise soon vanished. “Can I call you Augusta, miss?” 

Augusta chuckled. “You’re awfully polite for a country boy.” 

“My momma always told me being rude won’t lead you anywhere in life,” Lio said. 

“And that means being nice to every stranger you meet?”

“Guess so.” 

She cocked an eyebrow. “‘Guess’, huh?”

“So what are ya counting?” Lio asked. 

The sharp divergence derailed her train of thought. It was expected of a little kid.

“Nothing important, just movement,” she said. 

“Why do ya count it if it ain’t important?”

“Keeps me focused.”

“But don’t it get boring?” 

Augusta furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”  
“Well, couldn’t ya think about other things while you train? Y’know, like your momma or what you’re gonna eat or something?”

“If you let your mind wander, you get lazy,” she said. “I don’t really think about what I eat. It’s just fuel, I guess.” She trailed off.

“What if your momma makes a really delicious curry?” Lio said.

“My ‘momma’ doesn’t make my food for me.” Augusta grit her teeth.

Lio paused. Though the sun hadn't yet risen, she returned to her starting stance in the hopes the kid had gotten bored. She closed her eyes once more, and once more, the squeaking broke her focus.

“Are you eating the scraps from the hostel?”

Augusta’s heart jumped. She dropped her sword. Her arms shot up, guarding her face. Her body shook. Anticipation churned her stomach. She braced for a strike for a long while before finally opening her eyes. To her surprise, she met the face of a concerned young boy. 

“Are you all right?” he asked. 

“Y-yeah.” Augusta’s words trembled, but she hoped the boy was slow enough not to notice. She tried to steady her voice. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“I think I’ve seen you there before. You wear your hair in a brown cloth, yeah?” he said. 

Augusta whistled. “That’s right. You must have some eye.”

“My pops says I get it from him. He’s a partridge hunter.” Lio beamed. The boy’s pride quelled her nerves. 

Lio continued. “Hey, I know it’s sunrise an’ you gotta get back to your training, but do you mind one more question?” 

Augusta looked towards Willow’s Mountain. Sure enough, the sun peeked over the lowest ridge, and she hadn’t even noticed. 

“Go for it, kid,” she said. 

“Are you a samurai?” he asked. The question stupefied her. Her mouth hung open, but the words did not come. It should have been plain to see she wasn’t. Perhaps he was just a very dumb kid. 

“Not yet” was what she settled on. 

“So you’re not a samurai?” Lio asked. 

Augusta could feel negative thoughts creeping at the outskirts of her subconscious. She wished to school the kid, explain to him that the only samurai in the country live atop Willow’s Mountain, that it means it should be obvious she was not one, but she bit her tongue. “Not yet,” she repeated. 

There was a moment of silence, which was followed by a shrug from Lio. “You’re swell, miss,” he said. 

“You can call me Augusta,” she said. 

“Well, have fun, Augusta. I oughta go.” Without waiting, the little boy dropped below the fence line. She could hear shuffling—and another muffled voice—before two sets of feet rustled away through the weeds.

Augusta took a deep breath, baffled by the appearance and disappearance of the strange boy. She returned to her starting stance and closed her eyes. It didn’t take long for a figure to form in her thoughts. A mocking figure. One she had tried for a long time to drive out of her memories. The figure ridiculed her every movement. The question “Are you a samurai?” repeated over and over in a shrill, uncaring voice. It grated against her bones. Her heart stirred. 

Augusta blew out all the air from her lungs. With a sharp breath, she resumed counting. She picked a random number. It forced the thoughts from her head. 

Augusta woke up in a flurry. Her surroundings came all at once. The forest had lost all its color. Stars shone beyond the gaps above her. She could no longer measure the distance of the sun to the horizon, but the moon was also not above her yet. It couldn’t have been too long. 

She pushed herself to her feet; her joints crackled in protest. She searched for her staff, but it was nowhere to be found. Her best guess was it had fallen down the stairs while she had slept. Her shoulders dropped. There was no going back for it. She started taking deep, rapid breaths, then held the air in her lungs while she reached behind her. Her tendons resisted, but she forced them further. Through fumbling fingers she barely managed to retie the knot of her chest brace. She tied the string of her pants and kept moving. She picked a number and tallied it in her head. One for each step. Her whole body fought against the movement. Every ache and pain screamed for her to stop and rest longer. After a few dozen steps, her body had warmed up, but the aches did not go away. They continued to wear away at her.

After a few hundred steps, the stress bore much harder. Her vision flickered, a symptom of hunger and dehydration assaulting her physiology. After a few hundred more, phantoms started appearing in her vision. As she passed by open groves in the forests on either side of the path, figures of animals that never existed wrenched her attention away. Her body shook. It was impossible to tell if it was from the effort or the elements. 

Her count comfortably passed one thousand. Her mouth hung open, and her feet dragged up the steps. Her ears rang, and she could taste blood in her throat from the crisp air slowly tearing at it. Her head dropped, and when she raised it up again, a shadow stood before her. She choked. The phantom formed the figure of a woman in a long robe with bound hair, an effigy that made Augusta sick. Its presence alone gave way for the defeatist hidden deep in her psyche. She tried to push past the figure, but it followed, always a few steps ahead of her. 

“Are you still trying to be a samurai?” the phantom said. 

She ignored the phantom, continuing to push forward. 

“The age of samurai is over. Quit wasting your time on something so old fashioned. You have to be realistic,” the phantom said.

She hung her head, shying away from any attempt to resume looking forward. 

“Do you expect to be hired by some rich family? Nobody hires samurai anymore. You’d be better off trying to marry a nobleman,” the phantom said. 

Every few steps required a hand to help pull herself up. She groaned, wishing for her staff.

“Look at your skin. You’re training so much you’re starting to look like a man,” the phantom said. 

Her foot caught on a crack in the stone as she took another step. She fell hands and knees against the stone. 

“Are you eating the scraps from the hostel?”

The phantom brought a taut palm down on her. She trembled. 

“It’s impossible. Give it up.” 

Her body burned. 

“Are you still trying to be a samurai?”

She felt as though she were dying. 

She stayed on her hands and knees, still quaking. Tears welled in her eyes, but she couldn’t help taking notice of the thoughts in her head. These feelings were unlike those from the previous times she had heard the words of the phantom. 

She didn’t feel empty. 

“Shut up,” she spat.

The phantom looked to her, but spoke not. Augusta could not help the tirade that burst forth.

“Disappear!” she screeched. “I’m going to do this. It’s not about money. It’s not about nobility. You just sit around spouting there has to be some . . . some kind of monetary value for something to be worth doing. You have no principles. You have no values. You can’t even raise a child.”  
The subsequent words came far easier than she had ever expected. 

“I hate you. I don’t want your advice. You’re beneath me. I’ll beat Willow’s Mountain. I’ll show you what it’s like to have true values. I’ll show you what it’s like to persevere. I’m going to do it before the sunrise. I’ll beat Willow’s Mountain so convincingly the whole world will laugh at the fool who doubted me, who told me to give up.” 

Her teeth chattered. She wished to say more. All her emotions got pent-up over twenty silent hours while she wasn’t paying attention. A primal desire to protest longer burned in her chest, but her mind was set. 

She rose to her feet and walked. She picked a random number and shouted it, counted aloud. She spoke so it echoed through the vertical forests. She spoke so the mountainside town could hear. If she spoke loud enough, she could overpower her senses. She could scramble her thoughts. She could leave the phantom no room to taunt her. With each step, she counted, louder and louder. With each step, the figure of the phantom became more abstract. Even when the phantom had disappeared, she continued counting. Every time her conviction faltered, she counted louder. 

She could not tell how long it had been. Her counting slowly lost its linearity. She couldn’t tell if she was speaking proper language. Her sense of the world around her evaporated. 

Eventually, she took a step, and there was no step to take. 

Once more, she fell to her hands and knees. Her senseless shouting ceased as reality rushed back. The forest on either side had opened up to a circular garden. Quiet lantern flames cast a flickering light across the stone bricks that layered the ground. Barely visible growths of cabbage and rice ran along the perimeter of the area. A man in wooden sandals approached her. She did not move until the man placed a golden bowl in front of her. It was shallow and wide. Water quivered from the force of being set down. 

She acted like a wild animal. She surged towards the water, picking it up and drinking as much of it as she could. She couldn’t help vocalizing her pleasure. She had never enjoyed water in the same way before. When not a drop remained, she finally returned the bowl, letting out a gasp. The moisture eased the pain in her throat. After catching a few more breaths, she opened her eyes. 

The man crouched before her. He wore a white kimono, tied at the waist by a belt that held two swords, stacked one atop the other, at his side. His jet-black hair contrasted the thin tail it was tied into. On the other side of his head, he sported a matching goatee. Otherwise, he was entirely bald. His wide smile revealed numerous wrinkles on his face. These extended to his chin and neck. Numerous scars, small and large, broke up the hair covering his arms and legs. 

“Are your legs all right, miss?” he said. He spoke with the disposition one takes towards a scared pet. Her attention clung to his every word. It drew her attention to her knees. Blood pooled beneath them from injuries she hadn’t noticed on the way up. She could only muster a nod.

“When did you leave?” the man asked. 

“Sunrise.” She managed a whisper. 

The man’s smile grew wider. “That’s mighty impressive, especially for someone so young.” 

Augusta felt pain in her heart that overshadowed everything else. She repeated the words, over and over. She had to burn them into her memory. 

“What’s your name, miss?” the man asked. 

“Augusta,” she replied, meeting his golden eyes head on. 

“It’s a pleasure, Augusta. You can call me Ibunaga; naga for long, and ibu for night.” Ibunaga raised a hand towards Augusta. She flinched, but quickly came to her senses. It hung firm, palm facing up. He curled his fingers into a welcoming cradle. She felt drawn to it. 

“Long night, huh?” She chuckled. It sounded like the punchline to a bad joke where the test was the setup, but the thought disappeared as she set her hand in his. It radiated warmth and carried gentleness unlikely of a man who spent his years fighting with swords. He did not force her to move. His hand remained firm, nothing more than another step to help her climb. She soaked in the feeling. There was no world where this man wasn’t the real thing. A warm stream of tears rolled down her cheeks. She pressed against his hand. He did not falter as she rose to her feet. Ibunaga extended an offer to help her walk, but Augusta insisted on walking herself. She smiled as she followed a step behind him, moving deep into the cove where she could finally find a moment of proper rest.


End file.
